Character Sketches #1, Sailor Mercury - Part II, "Mizuno the Senshi"
Chapter 10: in which the die is cast, and good-byes are left unsaid.

"The die is cast."

-attrib. to Julius Caesar

Gomen ne sunao ja nakute, / Yume no naka nara ieru, / Shikou kairo wa shotto kunzen, / Ima sugu aitai yo.

-Moonlite Denetsu

After all was said and done, there were only three. Amy, David, and Urawa stood in a hotel room, away from the furor that had encompassed the past month.

"Well, Amy, you've certainly done well for yourself, huh?"

"Hai."

David swayed back and forth for a moment. The past week had been like a grudge match in hockey: fast and furious. So much: the mugging, the appearance of Sailor M, who just happened to be one of his students, who just happened to feel an undeniable love towards him that he just happened to return.

Why, he asked himself, is life always like this, like a Greek tragedy? One thing, just one little thing, goes differently, and everything is totally different. If the first muggers who got Amy were a bit more bloodthirsty--or a bit less. If the attackers in his class had been a bit smarter--or a bit stupider. If, if, ififif; there were so many ifs. But the biggest if of all, he had decided, would be resolved here and now.

Except Urawa beat him to it.

"Amy, you've...you've been wonderful. I know I could take all this away from you, all the pain, and the sorrow...would you...." he bent down in the traditional one-knee posture. "Would you do me the honor of marrying me?"

Amy and David were dumbfounded.

"Nani?" Can I do this? He's been a friend, even when he did try to kill me. But there's another....

"What?"

"I can't!" Heavens forgive me.

"She can't!" I let one fine lady slip away, and damned if I'll let another one go!

"Will you marry me?" asked Amy and David simultaneously.

"Hai!"

"Yes!"

"Iie." Urawa sagged down on the floor. Just once, just once, what he would have given for his precognition to be wrong. But here, it had been all too excruciatingly right, and now it was over. He could only leave her, and the world, to their fate. He walked out the door.

"NANI?!? And you just walked out of there? I don't believe you!" To say that Mamoru was upset would be a mild understatement, much in the vein of saying that W.W.II was a large conflict. "Dash it, Amy is too good a woman for you to just fold up like that! You two were made for each other!" He began wandering around the bar in which they were in, where Urawa had found him chatting with some colleges students who had once visited Japan.

"Made for each other," he repeated. "Just like Usagi and I, if not more! And you just gave up on her?!? This, this is ridiculous."

"I knew it would happen," said Urawa calmly. "There was no way it could have been. I'd been away too long."

"Too long? Kami-sama, she's known him for what? A couple of weeks? A month? I won't allow this." He rolled the phrase around a bit and fell in love. "Hai, I'll call the others over, and they'll settle it."

"No."

"Nani?"

"I said no. She's made her decision, and now she must live with it. And there's nothing more to be done."

Without another word, Urawa walked out of the bar, disconsolate. Mamoru looked around at the other patrons, then turned to the bartender. Gazing at the barkeep for a moment, he then turned to address the bar at large.

"Is it just me, or has the entire world gone mad?"

Outside, Urawa made a right into a dead-end alley. A shadowy figure waited.

"Well, I've done what you asked."

"So you have. Well done." The figure paused. "How are you?"

"You could kill me, and I wouldn't care."

There was a pause.

"Look, Urawa," the figure said soothingly, "there's nothing to be done. We both knew that it was going to be hard, but this is the best possible solution to the problem at hand. Or would you rather have the alternative?"

Urawa slumped against a rather grimy brick wall. "I don't know anymore, and I don't care." He turned to face the figure. "Have you finished with me?"

The figure seemed to tilt its head. "Yes. You are released. Avoid contact with Mizuno, though."

"Of course," he said tightly. "Of course."

Spinning on his heel, Urawa walked out into the world. The figure watched him go.

"It's for the sake of the world we fight, Urawa. It is a cold battle. Often we must do cold things." Sailor Pluto moved out of the shadow to see Urawa disappear into the crowd of humanity that was Baltimore at night.

"Even kill the ones we love."